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Nearly 2 million flee Hurricane Gustav

01 September 2008 08:13 (UTC +04:00)

More than 11.5 million residents in five U.S. states could feel the impact of the fast-moving storm, which was already looming as an issue in the hotly contested presidential election because of the botched response to Katrina’s chaos almost exactly three years ago.
By Sunday night, the streets of New Orleans were ghostly quiet after some 95 percent of the city’s population responded to desperate calls by officials for a sweeping evacuation.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said an estimated 1.9 million people had fled coastal areas. Only 10,000 people were believed to have stayed behind in New Orleans.
Police and national guard troops patrolled the empty city in Humvees as a curfew went into effect in an attempt to prevent looting.
Long lines of cars and buses streamed out of New Orleans after Mayor Ray Nagin ordered an evacuation of the city of 239,000 and told residents, "This is still a big, ugly storm, still strong and I encourage everyone to leave."
The U.S. National Hurricane Centre said Gustav was on track to hit the Gulf Coast near Houma, Louisiana -- west of New Orleans -- on Monday morning.
By Sunday evening the outer bands of the storm were nearing New Orleans and had kicked up strong winds and the first sheets of a driving rain expected to build over the next 24 hours.
The storm’s top winds were expected to be around 125 mph (200 kph), making it a Category 3 storm, the U.S. National Hurricane Centre said.
Forecasters said Gustav could still strengthen but said the hurricane was no longer expected to be a Category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.
Nonetheless, a storm surge of up to 14 feet (4.3 metres) could threaten the same levees that failed three year ago during Hurricane Katrina. Federal officials say the levees protecting New Orleans are stronger now but still have gaps.
Centred some 220 miles (354 km) offshore, Gustav was rumbling toward the Gulf coast at a 16 mile-per-hour (26 km-per-hour) pace as of 11 p.m. ET, the National Hurricane Centre said.
Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney said they would not attend this week’s Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. President will travel to Texas on Monday to oversee emergency response efforts.